Snow had barely cleared from the Barren Lands when Hearne witnessed the great traverse of the caribou herds, marching in countless multitudes with a clicking of horns and hoofs from west to east for the summer.  Indians from all parts of the North had placed themselves at rivers across the line of march to spear the caribou as they swam; and Hearne was joined by a company of six hundred savages.  Summer had dried the moss.  That gave abundance of fuel.  Caribou were plentiful.  That supplied the hunters with pemmican.  Hearne decided to pass the following winter with the Indians; but he was one white man among hundreds of savages.  Nightly his ammunition was plundered.  One of his survey instruments was broken in a wind storm.  Others were stolen.  It was useless to go on without instruments to take observations of the Arctic Circle; so for a second time Hearne was compelled to turn back to Fort Prince of Wales.  Terrible storms impeded the return march.  His dog was frozen in the traces.  Tent poles were used for fire-wood; and the northern lights served as the only compass.  On midday of November 25, 1770, after eight months’ absence, in which he had not found the “Far-Off-Metal River,” Hearne reached shelter inside the fort walls.

Beating through the gales of sleet and snow on the homeward march, Hearne had careened into a majestic figure half shrouded by the storm.  The explorer halted before a fur-muffled form, six feet in its moccasins, erect as a mast pole, haughty as a king; and the gauntleted hand of the Indian chief went up to his forehead in sign of peace.  It was Matonabbee, the ambassador of the Hudson’s Bay Company to the Athabascans, now returning to Fort Prince of Wales, followed by a long line of slave women driving their dog sleighs.  The two travellers hailed each other through the storm like ships at sea.  That night they camped together on the lee side of the dog sleighs, piled high as a wind-break; and Matonabbee, the famous courser of the Northern wastes, gave Hearne wise advice.  Women should be taken on a long journey, the Indian chief said; for travel must be swift through the deadly cold of the barrens.  Men must travel light of hand, trusting to chance game for food.  Women were needed to snare rabbits, catch partridges, bring in game shot by the braves, and attend to the camping.  And then in a burst of enthusiasm, perhaps warmed by Hearne’s fine tobacco, Matonabbee, who had found the way to the Athabasca, offered to conduct the white man to the “Far-Off-Metal River” of the Arctic Circle.  The chief was the greatest pathfinder of the Northern tribes.  His offer was the chance of a lifetime.  Hearne could hardly restrain his eagerness till he reached the fort.  Leaving Matonabbee to follow with the slave women, the explorer hurried to Fort Prince of Wales, laid the plan before Governor Norton, and in less than two weeks from the day of his return was ready to depart for the unknown river that was to lead to the Northwest Passage.